How AI Is changing journalism and why we must detect it early – The Mail & Guardian

Artificial intelligence is no longer just a buzzword floating around Silicon Valley — it’s already reshaping journalism, including here in South Africa. From helping newsrooms automate headlines to generating full-length articles, AI’s influence is being felt in everything from productivity tools to editorial decisions. But with this powerful innovation comes a deeper responsibility: making sure readers know who—or what—is really behind the words they consume.

That’s where the role of an AI detector becomes crucial.

AI’s Rise in the Media: Help or Harm?

Let’s be clear: not all AI is bad for journalism. In fact, some of it is genuinely useful. South African newsrooms are experimenting with AI to assist with basic tasks—transcribing interviews, summarising data-heavy reports, and even analysing audience engagement trends. These tools free up time for journalists to focus on more critical work: investigations, deep analysis, and ground reporting.

But problems arise when AI goes from assisting to replacing.

When media outlets start using generative AI to write full articles—especially on complex or sensitive topics—several risks emerge:

• Lack of context: AI doesn’t “understand” the news. It predicts words based on data, which can lead to misleading headlines or out-of-touch narratives.
• No accountability: If a mistake is made, who takes responsibility? The machine or the human who used it?
• Erosion of trust: If readers suspect that journalism is being outsourced to algorithms, they may begin to distrust everything they read—even the good stuff.

In a country like South Africa, where media plays a vital role in holding power to account and highlighting social inequalities, the stakes are even higher.

Why We Need AI Detection Tools Now

As the line between human-written and machine-generated content becomes blurrier, tools that can identify AI-generated text are no longer optional—they’re essential.

This is where AI detectors come in.

Platforms like ZeroGPT allow editors, teachers, researchers, and even casual readers to paste in a piece of content and see whether it’s likely written by a human or by AI. It’s not just about pointing fingers—it’s about transparency. Readers have a right to know whether what they’re reading came from a journalist’s lived experience or a language model trained on scraped internet data.

AI detectors can also be a safeguard in academia, public policy, and even law areas where ghostwritten AI content could mislead decision-makers or be used to manipulate public opinion.

Journalism Must Remain Human at Its Core

The great value of journalism has always been its human touch. South African journalism, in particular, is built on stories told with cultural nuance, empathy, and lived reality. Whether it’s a frontline report from a protest in Tshwane, a profile of an activist in Khayelitsha, or an investigation into corporate corruption, these are not just “content pieces”—they are stories rooted in context, perspective, and social consequence.

AI doesn’t live in our communities. It doesn’t experience injustice. It can’t ask a follow-up question in an interview because it felt something was off. Journalists do.

So while we may welcome AI as a tool, we must reject it as a substitute for the human voices that make journalism matter.

What Readers Can Do

If you’re a regular reader of news—whether from Mail & Guardian or elsewhere—you don’t need technical skills to become more media literate in the age of AI. Here are a few steps you can take:

• Ask questions: Does this article feel oddly generic? Does it lack quotes, context, or depth?
• Use AI detection tools: Free platforms like AI detector let you check whether a piece of text was likely AI-generated.
• Support ethical media: Subscribe to outlets that are transparent about how they create content and who writes it.

Final Thoughts: Transparency Over Hype

AI isn’t going away—and nor should it. Used wisely, it can be a powerful support tool in modern journalism. But left unchecked, it risks diluting one of democracy’s most critical pillars: an informed, empowered public.

That’s why tools like an AI detector should be part of every journalist’s toolkit—not as a form of censorship, but as a commitment to truth and transparency.

We must ensure that in our rush to embrace the future, we don’t forget what made journalism valuable in the first place: human curiosity, accountability, and empathy.